Terms:

1. Cancellations seven (7) days before the seminar will not be honored. 30% of the total amount will be charged to your account if you fail to inform us of your cancellations before the seven-day deadline. Cancellations should be in writing and emailed or faxed to us. Seminar participation may be transferred to another person in the same company.

2. The reservation form or reply form, when completed, may also serve as your billing invoice.

Advertising
and Event Suppliers Conference and Expo, November 13,2012 at Bayanihan
Center, Pioneer St., Pasig City - I am excited about this one, excited because
I get to here local experts that will share the latest technology and science
about their craft.

This is the learning event I am looking for
about advertising and event suppliers, and I just can’t wait to be in the
actual event to rub elbows with the experts and fellow practitioners of the
industry.

B2B
Expo – by appointment only Trade Expo

This one is definitely a must join B2B
expo. You get to talk with potential clients in an environment where the main
objective is to do business. If not create a connection with clients you have
been aching to talk with.

First, it is hard to get pass the gatekeepers
of different big and medium companies. But here, these companies will be
sending in their representatives to talk to potential advertising and event
suppliers participating in the trade expo.

Counting the benefits of the trade expo
makes me smile and look forward to the actual event where we can engage these
target buyers that my organization can partner and serve.

In my mind, seeing the event in the actual
day even if it is still two months away is sort of a special feeling. A special
feeling that forms a mind bubble with these bold words forming

It’s crazy but sometimes you
get inspirations from unexpected areas. As a professional events manager and
organizer, I do sometimes stumble lessons from areas I never imagine will
contribute in making me a better member of my industry.

I just finished reading the
Divergent written by Veronica Roth, gobbled the book for two days and putting
it down satisfied and wanting for more. But before I discuss further the ecstasy
I got from flipping the pages of the book, here are event management lessons I
learned from Divergent.

AMITY

Always remember that events
have a peaceful side, and you need to also be at peace with the environment you
are gravitating around, even though sometimes it is chaotic. Be reminded there
is beauty in chaos, and after chaos comes order – so true in events.

CANDOR

How many times have we seen
projects failed because of the lack of honesty among members of the event committees. Candor or honesty makes communication meaningful. It also makes pre-event and actual event
implementation easy to manage when you have honest personnel that supply you
with accurate data.

The saying “GOD is in the Details” can only happen if we
are honest enough to admit we overlooked a detail and report it or rectify it,
and not hide it under the rug.

ERUDITE

A lot of people think event
is easy but lack of erudite leaders and staff can mean catastrophe. If we want
to make sure we avoid faux pas we need to ensure everybody is knowledgeable in
what they do and what roles they play in the scheme of things in creating a successful event.

ABNEGATION

Creating an event is not
about one single person making it happen. It is always a team effort and
abnegation allows individual members to pool their talents to make the event
successful. In addition, we need abnegation to be present among event leaders
to set a good example to members.

Again, there is no I in TEAMWORK.

DAUNTLESS

Creating Mega Events need
dauntless people. Say for example Olympics, bidding and staging it in a particular
country is a gargantuan task only dauntless will be willing to grab. Every time
an event organizer or producer creates an event, big investment is involve. You
need the courage to bite the bullet and realize the vision you set for the event.

DIVERGENT

Finally, the secret to being
a successful event manager or organizer is to be divergent. We cannot be
conformist, we must always offer something different. Divergents do not need to
do what is accepted, divergents create fresh events or something that disrupts
the current traditional events. In marketing language, you need to be a Purple
Cow or be a Blue Ocean Strategist.

Lastly, let me admit to you
one thing I am Divergent and I am just beginning to disrupt your normal way of experiencing events J

A lot of changes are
happening in the way we promote events. The social media disrupted what we
normally do in promoting the events. However, one fact remains the same that in
promoting the events the process of informing the targeted visitors is unchanged.

We still use the cycle
famously known as AIDA. AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action.

Awareness –
attract the attention of the target visitors

Interest -
raise customer interest by focusing on and
demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in
traditional advertising).

Desire - convince customers that
they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their
needs.

Action - lead customers towards
taking action and/or attending.

This model is what we keep
in mind when promoting our events to attract participants or visitors.

Surprisingly, social media
leaves so much to be desired, in our case, in terms of committing exhibitors or
visitors in attending the event.

One exception is email
marketing which is very effective in completing the whole AIDA process.

However, I believe that AIDA
will eventually effectively be harnessed sooner in the social media world.

But for now, we depend on
the best asset SME companies like us do in making AIDA work that is
telemarketing and personal selling by meeting the clients.

In recent years, there are changes that are taking place in
the scene of business events. It used to be that we only see tradeshows
independently staged by exhibition organizers, and convention staged
independently by convention organizers. Now, the two are being merged. This
strategy is better.

The merging of this two elements are now being called hybrid
events. This is advantageous to organizers, as numbers of quality attendees are
attracted to take part in the convention. After breaks or when these attendees
felt listening fatigue to speakers they can just go to the tradeshow area to
look for business opportunities.

Notable in the local scene is the resent Philippine Retailers
Association conference and its Superstore Asia exhibition. Another is the Ad
Congress and its Trade Exhibition.

The results of hybrid events are outstanding. More businesses
are being generated and more companies are seeing the beauty of promoting in
this kind of events.

Indeed, it is like what is being practiced in the software
industry of Bundling – merging different independent features to create more
value to a product or services.

Hybrid events offer more dynamism and excitement to
attendees. This trend will continue to grow. I should day it makes face-to-face
interaction more valuable and is here to stay as a promotion tool.

After two days, the
Philippine MICE Academy’s first seminar offering ended. It is an event two
years in the making. But the wait is worth it! The institution geared towards
educating and providing continuous education to MICE professionals is set-up.
The dream towards creating a vibrant MICE industry took a small step that will
create a ripple – hopefully gain a momentum to be the next wave that our country desperately need in this high return
economic area.

But what are the lessons I learned
after listening for two days to our industry thought leaders.

Here they are:

1.You must have Passion

Being a MICE professional is
a thankless job. It is never easy. Try for example having an exhibition that house
200 exhibitors and accept 40,000 visitors; if the exhibitors have a minimum of
two personnel then you have 40,400 clients to serve – a daunting task.

So the key to overcome the
herculean tasks is to have passion. This will give you the necessary push to
hurdle all the obstacles.

2.You must have System

Executing tradeshows and
convention is a complicated endeavor. But with a system that evolves and
answers all the necessary needs of the event then the job becomes easier and
the implementation becomes fun.

MICE professionals must have
a system like checklists and other process in place to ensure the highest
delivery of service to the clients.

The system is the science
that puts balance to the passion which purely resides in our emotions.

3.You must have Humor

As always there will be
loose ends that you will overlook. Sometimes there will be areas that is out of
your control that will still be under your responsibility and when things go
wrong even if you are not directly involved it will still be your fault.

The best weapon for these situations is your
Humor. Laugh at your shortcomings then come back strong to correct these
things. Life is about coming back not falling out. This is true as MICE
Professionals, you must know how to be abundant with humor or else recovering
your bearing will be too hard.

Participants create their own event

4.You must be a Quick Thinker and Responsive

I heard in the two day event
a lot of mission impossible scenarios solve on a fly to keep the event orderly.
I heard a lot of misses because of inability to react quickly. Therefore, the
valuable lesson here is to think quickly, act quickly because there are a lot
of situations that come-out that we can never predict.

Me with Patrick Tan of Globallink and Joel Pascual of PEP Group - the two titans of the exhibition industry

5.Embrace Synergy

You can never have it all.
You can never do it alone. Embrace community and divide the opportunities.
There is always something for everyone. There is always a place waiting to be
occupied by a MICE professional in this industry that is like Wide Ocean of opportunity.

The ripple started and I can
see it slowly building up to achieve the reason it was created.

Recently one of my friends lost her Iphone. It was stolen in
a tradeshow that she attended last week. Her sad experience is just one of the
million stories that take place in events like conferences, tradeshows,
concerts, expos and other business events that we can think of.

It seems that even if we have made great advancement in
security technology, thieves find a way to get away with their crime.

However, we are not helpless. In our events, we record zero
to lower than 1 percent chances of lost items. Here are simple things we do
that we believe can also help you make a better event management security.

1.Event Management Security Orientation

Always conduct an event management security orientation to
all the participants of your event. Often participants do not realize the security
issues in a conference, trade shows, expos and concerts. As I always emphasize,
the safest time in an event is during pre-opening and closing. While the
riskiest is the actual event where a lot of people gather and we cannot
identify or judge properly who are possible thieves.

2.Lockable Cabinets and Cable Locks

Always demand contractors to provide lockable cabinets which
they have (although sometimes it will cost you extra). This cabinet you can use
to store your important machines and items, most especially the smaller ones.

In addition, bring cable locks to lock your laptop and
mobile phones. There are modus operandi where a thief post as a potential buyer
and talks to you while his companion which you are not aware of position at
your blindside to take your valuable items. Cable locks prevent them from
snapping easily your valuable items.

3.Security Augmentation

Always augment your security when you see that the volume of
people is increasing. We cannot scrimp on this area. It is not only security
but safety that you are managing in events.

4.Security Visibility

Your security must be visible and placed in strategic areas
of your event. Psychologically, the presence of security discourages thieves
from perpetrating crimes.

5.Security Consciousness

My friend lost this consciousness. But I do not blame her.
Sometimes we get lost in the moment. Events bombard you with a lot of stimulus
and this make you lose your guard on security matters. However, by practicing
security consciousness and making it a habit to be security conscious when in
big crowds you will prevent sad experience from happening.

Technology is there like CCTVs to improve our security,
however it is the behavior of the people not to be lax and be always guarded that is the best solution to prevent thugs for doing what they do in events.

As an events management organizer and manager, this is one of the key result areas that we are judged if we are competent or not.

We all lead a hectic and busy lifestyle. But do you realise that some people around you are able to handle everything that comes along their life with a breeze and yet seem to do so in a laid-back manner? This is while most of us are struggling to make ends meet.

Have you wondered what is their secret? Why are they able to be stress-free, ready to go and have everything at their finger tips? Here are tips to do so:

Tip 1: Kick the tasks off our brain

Kick the tasks out of our brain and plan to do it. We often have millions of "to-do" items, task, or ideas on our head and spend time procrastinating to act on them. Instead of using brain power to remember them, we should kick the items off on paper and use our brain cells in a more productive way. Writing these items down not only helps you to clear the mind, and is also a step closer to working on the task.

Tip 2: Organise a time schedule

Jumping straight into the work without prioritising is an ineffective way to do work. The proven and effective way is to prioritise and organise your time well. Divide your working hours into slots- for example, 20 minutes to clear emails, two hours to produce the presentation slides required for a project. Prioritise your work by focusing on the important and urgent things to do in the morning. This can be followed by items which are less important and easier to complete. This will make your work seemingly easier at the same time.

Tip 3: Leverage on other's time

Leveraging on other's time to achieve your objective is a powerful tactic, if used well. This is different from making us of others. Leveraging on other's time means empowering employees or co-workers or even outsourced workers to do the job for you. But of course, you would need to think about what it is the "catch" for them to do so.

Tip 4: Reward yourself

Do not be daunted by the pressure of completing a massive project. It may seem like a daunting hill to climb, but it will not be if you break down the work into "manageable portions" to work on. Pace yourself and celebrate small wins at every milestone. Upon finishing the massive project, give yourself a pat on the back and reward yourself with a big reward.

Tip 5: Set some personal time

One of the common aspects overlooked by most Americans is that they do not stop to smell the roses, despite a highly hectic lifestyle. Plan and set aside time (recommended 15-20mins) everyday to relax and do something you find enjoyable. Forget about checking on emails, or asking calls related to work. This is the time for you to just recharge yourself. You will come to work energised and productive after the breaks.

Tip 6: Leverage on technology

Most would agree that technology is a double-edged sword. Use them to your advantage by leveraging to do planning, simple task management, and for information sharing. In order to not get caught in the rat race of using more technology, keep it simple to a task manager that can meet your needs and suits you.

Tip 7: Keep Growing

The world is so dynamic and fluid these days. One should never stop learning and if we do, we are risking our ability to produce good work. Always value-add to yourself development by experimenting with new things, reading, and acquiring new knowledge. To maximise on productivity, leverage on the time spent travelling to work, during workouts or even waiting to read.

Tip 8: Kill away all distractions

This is the most powerful tip among all. Our life is cluttered with so many distractions that makes productivity seems impossible. Make a resolution to improve on things today, because procrastination does not help, but will only make our life less productivity.

I have a blast on the last Philippine Retailers Association’s
Conference and Expo that ended yesterday. For one, a lot of my marketing
theories came alive thru the examples of the different speakers. All speakers
are practitioners and their stories are case studies, making the encounter
with these speakers a wonderful learning moment.

Here are the three lessons that reverberated in my mind in
this recent event.

1. Innovation…Innovation…Innovation

The retails industry is a very competitive arena. All
players must innovate continuously or suffer a painful death.

Every speaker in the event exhort, lecture and cite examples
how a company neglects to innovate in this retail space suffered a fate worse
than death. Indeed, the behavior of the market is very fickle and monitoring
even a slight change on the market’s behavior is a paramount objective.

2.Experience as the new commodity

My mind is pummeled by almost all speakers mentioning that
as all products offset in the technology and feature side, winning the
competition is how you manage the customer experience. It is how sales would be
made by offering an experience that customers would love and remember.

This is the reason why Customer Loyalty Rewards Program is a
hot commodity nowadays. See more ofCustomer Loyalty.

3.Philippines
as one of the new emerging economy

Did you know that the average age of the Filipino is 22 years
old? This data shocked me. Learning this fact, ideas came surging into my brain
circuitry. This is one critical data that led other countries to invest on us
and more investments are coming. In fact, our robust economy is an
indication that things are looking-up for us.

One speaker even declared that the Philippines, in the very
near future, will hit its sweet spot in terms of growth. I can’t wait for that.
In fact, I am deep in my preparation, by seeking opportunities to take advantage
before the upswing happens.

G Toengi in the house - one of the perks in attending a conference

There you go; these are 3 Lessons that crystallized in my
mind in my two days stint in the event. I hope you also take advantage of this!

Attending the 21st Philippine Retailers Association Conference and Expo gave me the following ideas that you may find helpful.

1. Surprise Your Customers

This is not rocket science but sometimes Success makes us lazy. Unmindful that this bad habit erodes the number of customers.

Surprising customers like what Costco does by displaying products on the retail floor that customers can see only once in a year.

This brilliant move caused a spike on its sales.

2. Focus on the small basket

This means we have to pay attention to the profit we generate from small items that cater to the mass market. So the question now is are you doing this to generate sales?

3. Integrate ecommerce to your business

This is a commonplace in other countries but is slowly gaining ground in the Philippines. Do not jump on the bandwagon. Study the landscape and be aggressive after finding your space. One model would be Zalora.

4. The Philippines is nearing the sweet spot

I read a lot of positive news about our country's future. In this conference, I heard it again being mentioned by Janet Toral, one of our online gurus.
So you be ready to plot your way how to take advantage of it.

5. Be a proud Filipino

Mike Carandang, t.v. Producer of America's Next Top Model, speaking in this conference how he convinced Tyra Banks to try Filipino Fashion Experts to show their masterpieces and the rest is history. The world now gives a big respect to the Filipino talents in this industry of our society.

If you ask me the most important part of an event is the
Pre-event. It is the part where you put all the elements of a great event
together.

Here are some of the things I put emphasis during planning a
conference and exhibition.

Speakers Management

Attendees Management

Sponsorship and Exhibitors Management

Stage Management

Program Management

Venue Management

Staff Management

I call this my critical 7. There are a lot of details that
goes into every area of each items. Indeed, GOD is in the details, and I always
go with the former Intel President and Founder Andrew Grove dictum, “Only the paranoid
survives”.

But this week when the weather does not allow events people
to have orderly technical meetings to discuss the Critical 7 (I know I have one
technical meeting that was cancelled today because of impassable roads) what
does the project manager do?

This is another matter that is reserved for another
discussion.

***

While I write this piece in front of a weather that has gone
mad and images of flooded places in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, I cannot
concentrate. I am thinking about the hardships and lives lost in this never ending
drama that we encounter every year. I just wanted to register this message to
all the people out there stay safe, help is on the way and God will never
abandon you.

Before you start some work, always ask yourself
three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be
successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these
questions, go ahead.Chanakya

It is Monday again. The sun is sleeping and it feels like bed
weather. But you cannot snuggle inside your blanket. It is Monday, the start of
your work day. Here are three things to ponder to make you productive today and
the whole week.

. 1. Why am I doing it?

The key in answering this question is finding the reasons
why you are doing this task. Always go beyond what your eyes can see. Because
adding value to your organization is more than doing bigger tasks. Oftentimes
it is the routine tasks that we do that produces a lot of values to your
organization.

Take for example, the telephone operator. If she will not
attend the calls and forward it to the proper personnel there could be a
service breakdown or an emergency waiting to transform into a disaster for your
company.

2. What the results might be?

We have a standing policy in the office, things you cannot
measure you cannot achieve. Only measurable things can be achieved. So it is a
must that you have clear goals that you are set to accomplish. A scorecard is
the answer. Also, who on earth does not love turning work into a game where you
keep scores of your effort. This makes business a game of fun. It allows you to
excel and be at your best.

3. Will I Be Successful?

If you can answer the first two questions it is impossible not
be successful. The deeper meaning and the measurable goals assures you that you
can find the end of the tunnel. There is no vagueness to what you do.

Most importantly, no matter what the weather outside it will
not affect you because you know what is the job to be done in a deeper sense of
it.

This dictum is very much
true in the events industry. Actually, we knock our heads to the wall just to
create a complete plan that delivers the client needs. So, I am crafting here the
basics to help you win the battle in terms of creating a plan.

After the client and you, as
the event manager or event planner agreed on what are the objectives of the
event, the next best thing to do is plan on how to make the event become a
reality.

I read a lot of books and
some are very complicated requiring a lot of metrics. Not that I do not concur
with their ideas but there is a simple and easier way to plan an event.

First breakdown the plan
into three parts: the three parts are pre-event, actual event, and post event.

I.The Pre Event

Pre Event basically contains
the following (you can add depending on the complications of your event)-

If Sales and Marketing is
included in the agreement include sales collateral, promotion
plan, contracts

II.Actual Event

Review the Operations Organizational Chart must include
Operations Head, Program Head, Registration Head, Exhibit Head, Speaker Handlers;
Stage Management Head included here are the Directors of the different technical
needs of the even

Execute the plan or the Daily Run Sheet.

III.Post Event

Terminal Report

Photo and Video Documentation

Assessment Meeting with the Client

As you can see this
blueprint is just the basics and depending on your event you may add or delete
some portions. But just to serve as a springboard this plan is best for
conferences or corporate event.

Again, the most important
part in creating an event plan is to answer the question “How will I achieve
the client’s objectives”. After that, break your plan into the three most
important parts which are mentioned above.

Everybody in the business industry wish they have King Midas’
Touch, the legendary king that can turn anything that he touches into gold.

Often we see leaders and members of the organizations who
achieve a streak of winning business moves branded as having the Midas touch.

But it is difficult to have the hand of King Midas and the fierce
competitive landscape make this legendary concept further pushed inside our old
cabinets.

However, that does not mean we cannot have the Midas’ Touch.
The truth is we can scientifically.

Enter the Customer Loyalty Rewards Program a scientific way
of influencing the behavior of our consumers in favor of our organizations by way of
encouraging them to have a repeat business.

The Airlines reap the benefits of this Customer Loyalty
Rewards Program and from then on this scientific tool is one of the favorite vaunted
weapons in marketing that is being used in winning our customers heart and wallet.

So going back to our early story about us having a wishful thinking
about King Midas’ Touch we do not need to fret no more. If we believe that
customers are king, then our next move is to think deeply how we can create a
lasting marriage between our products and services, and our customers.

And my argument is for us to create a well thought out Customer Loyalty Rewards Program that will keep our customers excited every time
they engage with our products and services.

Travel Philippines Show Mega Vacation Sale is a show to capture the OFW
and Balikbayan Market to travel the Philippines in their vacation period here
in the country.

The event is slated this December 7-9,2012, at Megatrade, SM Megamall.

It also aims to capture the
market of people that are making plans to travel next year to book their trip
earlier to avail of the affordable and markdown prices offered by the
exhibitors of the event.

Philippine
tourism continue to show its strength as visitor count for the first five
months of the year aggregated to 1,819,781, recording a double-digit growth of
13.05% compared to the 1,609,651 arrivals for the same period in 2011.The month of January 2012 recorded the most number
of visitors at 411,064 and the highest increase of 17.54% (tourism.gov.ph).

The
Travel Philippines Show highlighted by the Mega Vacation Sale aims to add to
the steady rise of tourism in the country and promote the different companies
involved in this industry.

Who Must Visit

OFW,
Balikbayan, OFW Families, Professionals and families planning their trip this
December and the coming year.